**OUR EXPERIENCE IN DELIVERING SECONDARY SCHOOLS**
As pupils move towards their next stage of education, the design of these buildings becomes more specialised to enable a wide and more specialised curriculum.
The careful design of these spaces will improve performance as well as raising pride in the buildings that the pupils learn within.
If a better education building can have a big impact on achievements, it's so important for all the stakeholders to be at the table early.
Having all the experts together at the earliest possible stage ensures design is fine tuned towards positive impact on student and teaching experiences and performance, as well as centering around the best value and most sustainable solutions.
In the secondary education sector we have delivered a wide range of new build, extension and refurbishments both on greenfield sites and live school campuses.
Learn more here
Kenilworth School | £45.6mKenilworth, Warwickshire
Kenilworth Secondary School and Sixth Forms was the largest school in the UK at the time of its construction.
Procured through the PAGABO framework, the new school replaced three local schools with a super campus that caters for 2,200 pupils, meeting the needs of the growing population.
With a large sloped site to contend with the team designed a huge cut and fill exercise, working the earth into the landscape design, which helped reduce the carbon and cost associated with cart away materials. The school also has a a mechanical heating and ventilation system and radiant panels to keep energy costs low, and also a sustainable drainage system which helps create biodiverse rich areas in and around the school.
Working with Danny and his team has made our expansion project a real pleasure to be involved with. Total commitment to providing a quality product whilst ensuring the business of learning was unaffected. Always put the schools needs first.
On time
On budget
£32.2m social value
10/10 customer satisfaction
45/45 CCS score
97% waste diversion
Pagabo framework
Secondary & sixth form
5 teaching wings
2,200 pupil places
Design and build
111 weeks duration
Architect | Glancy NichollsPM | ARUPC&S | ARUPMEP | Drayton Beaumont
City of London Academy | £43.7mLondon Borough of Hackney
As part of Hackney Council’s programme to replace outdated leisure facilities and increase school places, two projects were delivered simultaneously - Britannia Leisure Centre and the City of London Academy.
The 12,500m2 school consists of four and five stores with a basement under half the building. It also includes two large full height atrium areas, a rooftop playground including an artificial grass and MUGA pitch.
The façade is constructed using a profiled precast concrete façade system with inlaid brickwork, supported by a lightweight steel frame. This has allowed for fast erection on site while minimising the construction site area. The building footprint has been kept as small as possible to maximise the playground areas, taking advantage of the existing topography to create an amphitheatre playground.
Simply one of the finest schools & educational environments, not just in Hackney, but in the country. State of the art, spacious, designed with the community in mind & ready to serve Hoxton, Shoreditch & Hackney."
Precast façade, manufactured off site
Architect | Feilden Clegg Bradley StudiosPM | Projx Consulting LtdMEP | Buro Happold
Dumfries High School | £53mDumfries & Galloway Council
The construction of the £53 million project will provide state-of-the-art educational facilities for over 930 pupils.
Designed by Ryder Architecture, the new school will be built on the site of the former high school’s football pitch and is due for completion in spring 2026.
As well as an all-weather sports pitch, the school will house the new David Keswick Athletics Centre, offering exceptional PE and sporting facilities for pupils and the wider community. The project will be highly sustainable with a focus on energy efficiency delivering on the authority’s vision for their learning estate.
Externally a full-size grass pitch for rugby/football and full-sized 3G pitch floodlit will be delivered for school/community use.
It's a privilege to work with hub South West and Dumfries Galloway Council, who share our vision to deliver Dumfries High School. Our breadth of experience in the education sector and our approach to quality enable us to construct exceptional learning environments.
hub South West Scotland Framework project
LEIP funded
SFT engagement
2026 School Completion
2027 Overall completion
New High School on site of existing High School
All Electric Services
Leading Sustainable Design
Energy Efficient Systems
Inspiring Education Facilities
Architect | RyderC&S | Woolgar HunterMEP | Rybka
Haverfordwest English Medium School | £44.7mHaverfordwest, Pembrokeshire
Delivered for Pembrokeshire County Council this new school caters for pupils aged 11-16 and sixth form students.
Procured through the South West Wales Regional Contractors Framework (SWWRCF) the scheme also includes a separate two storey sports building with shared school and community leisure facilities as well as extensive external sports pitches.
Close collaboration with the school throughout was key, with the pupils and staff being involved in the selection of façade treatment and colours, which gives it a striking impact.
HRH Princess Royal, along with other dignitaries, were on hand to open this game changing school for the community.
Morgan Sindall delivered the project two weeks early, which was absolutely amazing. I was amazed at how emotional I felt getting those keys. I didn’t anticipate feeling quite as emotional as I did, and it was a fantastic feeling.
Architect | AtkinsPM | AtkinsC&S | AtkinsMEP | Atkins
Houlton School | £38.9mRugby, West Midlands
Delivered for the DfE and Urban & Civic, Houlton school involved new build and refurbishment of an existing Grade II listed radio station.
Houlton School has become the key ingredient in the recipe for a successful new community. Marrying listed building restoration, with state-of-the-art new development, the former Rugby Radio Station is now answering the secondary school place shortage with a brand new £38.9 million state of the art secondary school.
This project starts from the conviction that reuse is more sustainable than new building, justifying the retention of the heritage buildings, despite their challenges. Huge effort has been put into making sure the whole project leaves a sustainable legacy.
It speaks of quality the moment you walk through the door. Parents have said it’s like coming to an independent school without the fees. We are incredibly fortunate, all of our facilities are fantastic and state-of-the-art.
Architect | vHHPM | Urban&CivicC&S | Price & MyersMEP | Hoare Lea
Kingsbrook Secondary School | £36mAylesbury, Buckinghamshire
The second of the school developments on the new Kingsbrook estate, Kingsbrook Secondary comprises a new three storey 6FE (1080 place) secondary school incorporating a 32 place SEN unit.
An off-site approach was used in order to safeguard the completion of the project and create efficiencies in the programme. Thanks to the use of a SIPs envelope wrap and prefabricated MEP service modules, the construction programme was significantly reduced.
External play areas including a grass playing pitch, trim trail, MUGA, 3G all weather pitch, running track lines and wildlife area.
The low carbon design means it will provide an energy efficient and environmentally friendly space for the growing community.
We are delighted to see the doors of the new Kingsbrook Secondary School open on schedule and on budget. This has been a huge project, but the local community can now reap the rewards of this fantastic new facility."
Structural Insulated Panels
Architect | ADP ArchitecturePM | MaceC&S | AKS WardMEP | KJ Tait Engineers
Whitmore High School | £29mBarry, South Wales
Delivered for Vale of Glamorgan Council the new secondary school caters for 1,100 pupils.
Procured through the SEWSCAP framework, the new build campus caters for 900 secondary school and 200 sixth form students. Delivered on the live school campus, the team built the new facility on the existing school's rugby fields. Once complete, the students were moved across so that the demolition of the old school and creation of additional sports pitches could be undertaken.
With the site being live throughout, weekly look aheads and programming schedules were undertaken to work around campus activity, whilst delivering 2,255 hours of STEM activities for pupils integrating the entire campus throughout the build.
With Morgan Sindall, it was like a friendship – a professional friendship, which is the best kind. I'll actually miss having them here because you could always ask questions without judgement and know you’d get complete honesty – it was a real trust that we built.
Architect | AtkinsPM | AECOMC&S | AtkinsMEP | Atkins
Cefn Saeson Comprehensive | £27mNeath, South Wales
Delivered for Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council, Cefn Saeson is new 900 place secondary school.
Procured through the SWWRCF framework, the steel framed new build project replaces the existing school and includes 56 state-of-the-art classrooms and extensive sports facilities, including 3G pitches and sand dressed hockey and grass rugby pitches.
The school includes an array of photovoltaic panels, helping the school to generate its own electricity. During the scheme, the team had to overcome a sloped site, and managed to carefully design the landscape to step down with the external sports pitches whilst minimising the cart away from site.
The experience has been quite amazing really, it was a team effort – we felt valued and involved. You know, that’s a tribute to the build quality of this place in that it looks exactly the same as it did a year ago today. This has given us a school which is nigh on perfect.
Architect | Powell DobsonPM | Neath PT CBCC&S | WSPMEP | Whiteheads
Oasis Academy | £19.4mSilvertown, London
Situated at the heart of an emerging community in West Silvertown and procured through the DfE framework, the new Oasis Academy provides a co-educational, all-inclusive secondary school for 600 students.
Arranged as a multi-storey ‘superblock’ on a former fire station site, the building design incorporates outdoor social space at different levels and a full-sized sports pitch on its roof.
The new building’s design features folded external walls to create a layered effect and warm white brickwork is used on the façade to complement the residential properties in the area - including the nearby Grade II listed Silo D, which dates to the 1920s.
We have been waiting many years for this state-of-the-art building to become a reality. It is very much a celebration of the work that has taken place to make this ‘superblock’ academy come to life."
Architect | Rivington Street StudiosPM | JacobsC&S | Ingleton WoodMEP | Anderson Green
Eden Girls Leadership Academy | £17.1mBirmingham, West Midlands
Delivered for Birmingham City Council Eden Girls is a new 600 place secondary school and sixth form.
Procured through the CWM framework, this brand new secondary school was delivered based upon our MySchool principles - taking standardised design and components to fast track school construction.
The new 48,000 square foot campus comprises 15 modern, general teaching classrooms in addition to three ICT-rich classrooms, five science laboratories and one science preparatory room, spread over three storeys. External features include a sports hall and external grass pitch, as well as providing library space with a new Learning Resource Centre.
The new school campus is the realisation of several years of hard work and we're delighted that this dream has now become a reality. Morgan Sindall has worked meticulously to deliver a fantastic new school site providing our pupils with a school that they truly deserve.
Architect | Stride TreglownPM | AcivicoC&S | CundallMEP | Cundall
Bottisham Village College | £16.7mBottisham, Cambridgeshire
Delivered through the Cambridgeshire County Council framework, Bottisham is a 3FE extension project, alongside refurbishment of the existing campus.
The project enables the school to expand from a 7FE to a 10FE school with a brand new extensive teaching block, linking in to the existing live education campus.
This BREEAM Very Good project is now being managed by the Anglian Learning Trust with the new wing containing 12 classrooms, an auditorium, dance studio, recording studio and practice rooms. A new bus park was also constructed , whilst also remodelling the original 1937 school hall into a new community hub library which hosts workshops and talks for the community.
We feel like we have everything we wanted and more. We’re absolutely thrilled with the outcome and the quality, so we’re absolutely thrilled with it. We see Morgan Sindall as our friends, and friends of the school now, because they have worked with us so closely."
Architect | DLAPM | Faithful + GouldC&S | EMECMEP | EMEC
Douay Martrys Catholic School | £11mIckenham, London Borough of Hillingdon
The refurbishment of Douay Martyrs Catholic School is based in Ickenham and consists of 4 phases including: modular extension, refurbishment and M&E upgrades.
Due to the lack of space around the site, the team worked with Premier Modular to place 36 temporary accommodation modules on top of the permanent modules, provided by EcoModular. The modular units are finished with a brick slip cladding system predominantly to match the existing brickwork.
Spaces included classrooms, two ICT suites, science labs, SEN spaces and a sixth form ‘hub’ with interlinked dining, study and social areas. A platform lift and external staircase were also built which link seamlessly with the permanent structure.
The Department of Education team look forward to working with the MSC Northern Homes Counties team on the next project and have absolutely no hesitation in recommending them."
Architect | Rivington Street StudiosPM | JacobsC&S | MEP |
Hailsham Community College | £10.9mHailsham, East Sussex
Hailsham Community College (HCCAT) now benefits from 2,700m2 of new space, which includes an extra 22 classrooms, a flood-lit all-weather pitch, a new SEN facility and a newly refurbished Sixth Form Centre and Library.
This extra capacity ensured the academy met the demands of the new academic year by creating places for 300 additional 11-16-year-old pupils and 100 sixth form students.
We understood the client’s need for an accelerated build programme – to ensure the buildings were ready in time for the new school term – and to ensure a sustainable solution. An off-site manufactured, timber system from Streif was utilised, enabling an early completion and facilitating carbon savings of 54.5 tonnes from transport alone.
What has been accomplished over the past two years has been quite remarkable at a time of dealing with a global pandemic but still managing to keep the various aspects of the project on track in a ‘live’ and active school."
Architect | Miller BournePM | JacobsC&S | Ingleton WoodMEP | Anderson Green
Clacton, Colne & Sweyne Schools batch | £9.5mEssex
Delivered through the Essex County Council framework, three school projects were delivered in live school environments.
At Clacton Community School the team constructed a new modular class base and a traditionally built sports hall. The Sweyne Park School in Rayleigh also included a new modular class block on the existing campus and finally Colne School included a new modular class block. All three projects were delivered in a live environment using Modern Methods of Construction (MMC).
By using renewable technologies such as photovoltaic panels, as well as a fabric first approach to the buildings heating and ventilation systems, these projects were delivered to achieve Net Zero in operation.
Using the MMC approach on these three projects has enabled us to successfully deliver new teaching space for schools whilst at the same time helping us deliver on our ambitions to tackle climate change and work towards making Essex carbon neutral."
Architect | Pick EverardPM | Pick EverardC&S | Pick EverardMEP | Pick Everard
Calthorpe Park School | £9mFleet, Hampshire
Construction of a new 2FE extension to create 300 additional pupil places.
Procured through the SCF framework, the standalone expansion to Calthorpe Park School increases the school capacity from 1425 to 1725 pupils.
Delivered on a live school site, sensitive logistics plans and weekly look ahead programmes were vital in delivering around campus activity.
Despite the pandemic requiring us to re-sequence works around rearranged campus movement schedules, the team delivered the job four weeks early, which negated the original plans to construct a temporary school. The team even purchased hundreds of umbrellas for the school - as COVID-19 had meant circulation between lessons had to be done outside during the pandemic.
Architect | Hampshire CCPM | Hampshire CCC&S | Hampshire CCMEP | Hampshire CC
Great Yarmouth Charter Academy | £6.9mGreat Yarmouth, Norfolk
Delivered through the Department for Education (DfE) framework, this included a new teaching block and refurbishment.
Using our MySchool approach - a standardised approach to design and construction, the new two storey teaching block includes science rooms, teaching rooms and social spaces. his helped save time and cost for the customer by using a pre-designed approach that used offsite components.
In addition, the scheme included a major refurbishment of the existing school - works which were carried out during the school holidays to avoid clashes with academic timetables - as well as the creation of new external hard play areas and a large 3G sports pitch.
“This was the easiest build process that I've ever seen. It's the third one I've been involved in, but with Morgan Sindall, it's been absolutely fantastic and you've got to remember that in the middle of that we had a COVID-19 lock down. The whole process was so professional.”
Architect | LSIPM | MaceC&S | CundallMEP | Cundall
Queensmead School | £6.9mRuislip, London Borough of Hillingdon
A replacement two storey block on the site of an existing, locally listed technology building. The scheme includes six new flexible teaching spaces on the ground floor and 12 new general classrooms on the first.
The building has been positioned on site to maximise available natural resources, sun path, site topography and location, whilst using the shape and massing of the building to good effect giving a light and naturally ventilated internal space.
We also delivered a new standalone plantroom, which sits separately to the new school building. This was prefabricated off-site and then installed on site within two days. This significantly reduced project time and the disruption to classes, as numerous service switch-overs were involved.
We are so impressed with our new block, not only in terms of curriculum and the enhanced facilities but also the natural light and ventilation. It makes for a wonderful space in which to teach and learn"
Architect | LungfishPM | ArcadisC&S | DWSMEP | BEC
Haileybury Turnford School | £6.5mCheshunt, Hertfordshire
Provision of a new two storey block to an area of soft informal/social play, directly south of existing hard play area with a new perimeter path connecting it with the existing hard standing. Demolition of the old 1959 block took place on completion.
The scheme includes a library and eight new classrooms on the first floor, and four classrooms, three science labs, prep room and study areas on the ground floor. The gross internal floor area of the proposal is 1795m².
A new hard surface perimeter path will connect the new block to the existing hard standing.
The building was designed to utilise a Structurally Insulated Panel (SIP's) external wall system with excellent U-Values and afford the building a low thermal mass, allowing a fast-initial heat up, but extensive insulation ensures the heat will be retained as required.
The WOW moment for me was when the children first saw their new building - there was such a buzz. It really has transformed the way in which our children learn."
Chantry Academy | £5.8mIpswich, Suffolk
Delivered through the Suffolk County Council framework, Chantry Academy is a new build extension to an existing campus.
The project includes the creation of a new 18 place SEND block and two storey 11 classroom teaching block. Working in a live environment the team ensured deliveries and schedules of work were programmed around academic timetables.
A key driver for the project was to ensure phase one was open for the new summer term, and given the size of the SEND block, traditional masonry wouldn't have been an option. The team changed to a Structural Insulated Panel System (SIPS) which accelerated the programme enabling them to handover on time for the new pupils.
his project has been a really good experience and the quality here has been excellent. The whole team were enthusiastic and committed - they were excellent communicators. I felt on this job I was brought into the team and I always felt included."
Architect | ConcertusPM | ConcertusC&S | ConcertusMEP | Concertus
Horsforth School | £5.5mHorsforth, Leeds
Delivered in partnership with Leeds City Council, the new 1,658m2 two-storey building includes general classrooms, science labs, computer rooms and a library facility.
The project also incorporates a new school entrance on the south of the site together with new sports facilities and 20 new car parking spaces. Opened in 1972, the school educates around 1,400 students aged between 11 and 18.
Employment and training opportunities within the build programme were created, as well as sessions with students at Horsforth School and other local educational institutions in order to demonstrate the many rewarding career paths within construction.
We’re delighted to see the finished product and even more excited to start utilising it. The students have been involved with the expansion right the way through, from sessions with project managers to steel signing and much more
On time and budget
10/10 satisfaction
99.7% recycling
100 volunteer hours
3 apprentice starts
PAGABO framework
Two-storey expansion
Architect | Sense of SpacePM | AMR ConsultC&S | CurtinsMEP | CPW
Carleton High School | £19.25mPontefract, Wakefield
Morgan Sindall Construction recently started on site for this new large-scale three-storey Net Zero teaching facility in Carleton, Pontefract.
The project will provide the secondary school with new three-storey teaching accommodation for Maths, English, Science, Humanities, DT and Modern Foreign Languages including all ancillary facilities, alongside a new five court MUGA and fully refurbished sports hall. Following decant, the School will move into the new accommodation, vacating 6no. existing teaching blocks which will be demolished and soft landscaped.
The new teaching accommodation started on site in April 2024, and will be completed and handed over in time for the new September term 2025, with full demolition and landscaping works completed by February 2026.
DfE Framework
Three-Storey Teaching Accommodation
Five Court MUGA
Refurbished Sports Hall
Large scale demolition
Net Zero new building with PVs.
Architect | Sense of SpacePM | ArcadisC&S | CurtinsMEP | CPW
Outwood Academy | £7.3mCity Fields, Wakefield
This project included for a new school extension to house the departments of drama, dance, music and art.
The building features a multi-purpose, 2-storey flexible performance space, galleries and state-of-the-art music recording studios. These are not only for teaching and performing spaces but also allow collaborative working with visiting arts practitioners. They can also be used by the local community.
We carefully considered the site masterplanning and the planned enabling projects, to ensure that the new arts centre would not impact future developments at the school site. We also developed a social value plan that saw us engage with the community around employment and skills training.
Morgan Sindall have kept us fully informed of decisions that may impact on the Academy ensuring that these are scheduled to cause minimal disruption. They remain a totally unobtrusive presence, the operation is so efficient that to most the works have gone practically unnoticed within the school.
17.9 tonnes of CO2 saved
124 apprentice weeks
2500 tonnes of materials reused
750 pupils aiming to increase its capacity to 1050
Flexible and future adaptability
Architect | ArcadisPM | ArcadisC&S | ArcadisMEP | Arcadis
